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I began this journey thinking about my future and what I wanted in my portfolio. I love to take something that has cosmetic issues and transform the space so that the product will sell. We all know there are theories to customer manipulation. This study on my very own store, Planet 3, will be a detailed journey of making more money with tips from the internet and of course-my love and knowledge of production.

***Bagvertising

Branded shopping bags have been used for advertising for many years. This has morphed into a much more adventurous method of guerrilla marketing that works well for clothing retailers. Instead of simply adding the store name and logo to bags, retailers use them in place of expensive print advertising. Kansas-based Habitat Shoe Boutique uses “bagvertising” to advertise its range of high-end, classic European shoes and accessories by printing them on the store’s shopping bags.

Flier Swaps

Swapping fliers with other businesses in the same area gives both companies an opportunity to reach a complementary target market. You can print low-cost paper fliers or postcards and ask retailers of purses, fashion accessories or cosmetics to place them in a prominent position in their stores. In return, they can place fliers advertising their products in your store. The products appeal to a similar audience while avoiding direct competition.

Long Lines

Long lines attract attention, in the same way flash mobs do. Contact all your friends and family members and arrange for them all to turn up and queue outside your clothing retail store on a specific date and time. Invite the local press, take photos and post them on your social media profiles to generate interest in the store. You may have to throw a party, give away freebies or pay them to come, but plenty of young people will queue for an hour for $10 and a cup of coffee. The images of your lineups can become valuable marketing collateral.

—–Perfect for Connect –jessica & Bill Dawars -Mason come up with some type of contest, etc..big group shows up/flash mob, but something cooler

To create the big event: Contests

Run a contest using prizes donated by a clothing manufacturer or a large company that wants to connect with the same target demographic your product appeals to. This benefits both the prize sponsor as well as the retailer, so the cost to both parties remains minimal. Your costs are limited to promoting the contest and the method of entry, such as printed posters, coupons and entry forms. Generate a buzz about the contest on social media, and store the names of all entrants for future newsletters, emails or telemarketing appeals.

That could be a contest or get Hernobal involved.

Ask landlord if we can paint outside-something-and get public art people to do it for free.

Never Stop Growing Your Network Expand your network of contacts and potential clients. Ask your best, most powerful, most influential friends or business associates to introduce you to the five people they think you should meet to expand your business. Take each of the contacts out for coffee and get to know them. Discuss your plans and future goals, tell them about why your business is special and ask for their advice. You will be amazed at how these new contacts will pay off ten-fold with recommendations to you for new business and innovative ideas you hadn’t thought of.

MASON!!!! & RY-Twitter Giveaways Give away your product or promotional item on Twitter. Ask a question about a product on your website or blog. The first person to answer wins. When you send the item write, “Retweet upon receipt,” to be entered in a second contest.

Listen. Tweet. Listen. Listen Again. Identify your ideal clients and find them on Twitter. Then start following them! Spend weeks listening to them; you’ll be amazed what they will tell you about their concerns, their ideal products, their current frustrations with their vendors. It’s a great way to get open honest market research.

Get a Twitter account in your business name. Post links to your articles educating people in your niche market. At the bottom of the article have links to your products & services. Also offer discount coupon codes to twitter members. This has worked very well for me.

Leverage Linked-In Join as many Linked-In groups as you can that are related to what you sell and post a question or tip on a regular basis. If you have a blog or e-newsletter, post an announcement to your Linked-In groups with a link whenever you release a new issue or blog posting. It’s free, you’ll be recognized as a leader, and you’ll reach thousands of business people interested in your field.

Facebook It! Your Facebook friends can be your greatest free marketing tools so enlist their help! In Facebook, use the NOTES application to create a special, limited-time “friends and family” promotion (i.e.: enter “facebook09″ at checkout to receive 10% off), tag all your friends and ask them to pass along your exclusive deal to their own friends. A great offer goes a long way quickly…especially through our favorite social networking sites!

Tweet It! Twitter is a great place to share photos (TwitPic), host contests, shout out to loyal customers, have scavenger hunts, and promote events. Think of ways you can incorporate Twitter into your promotions in a fun, engaging way. Thank loyal customers, retweet their tweets, and even host fundraisers. All the cool kids are doing it. Why shouldn’t you?

Network Your Networks Network with friends who then network with their friends. There’s power in numbers. Don’t spam of course, but utilize your network to get the word out to your people who know people who know people. Someone ultimately knows someone that can help you out…and believe it or not…will want to. When networking, do NOT focus on getting a referral or lead. Instead, focus on helping others. If you help them first (by adding value to their life/business), they’ll help you later.

WE NEED TO GET INVOLVED IN A CHARITY. GET SUGGESTIONS FROM STAFF.

FOLLOW UP CALLS-?

Maintain Relationships With Clients The difference between a successful company and a mediocre one often boils down to an owner’s commitment to building (and sustaining) relationships with clients and prospects. While it’s important to keep up traditional communication and PR, business owners should also be extending their relationships through online forums – website, blogs, and social networks. Conversations are happening all around you – are you listening, are you participating? Are you a thought leader? Be visible!

Inspire Customers To Call You Do something really different. Send a monthly postcard instead of a hard copy newsletter. Self-printed cost is $0.46 ea. including the stamp. Make it fun and colorful with a strong “Call to Action” title, like: “100 reasons to call us. List 10-to-20 reasons, including your skills, talents, and tasks. Give customers a coupon for a discount, or a free doughnut, or something fun to inspire them to call.

OR EMAIL DISCOUNT CARD TO THOSE THAT HAVEN’T BEEN BACK LATELY.

THAT WOULD INCLUDE GOING OVER EVERY PIERCING CLIENT’S INFO

Be Generous To keep customers loyal to you, instead of a frequent buyer program, send your customers small “surprise” gifts. Customers come to expect rewards when they are members of a program. Surprises always work to instill loyalty and retention.

Have a VIP CARD. Cost 10$ to join, but they are first to know about the best deals, etc..??

Or a card that gets stamped or licked –whatever- and 10th purchase gets 20$gift card.

Own Your “Wow” Marketing gurus often refer to it as “differentiation.” Academics who fancy themselves as marketers – they’re the ones who write marketing textbooks – prefer to call it a USP, your Unique Selling Proposition. What they’re both taking about is more correctly described as the “Wow!” factor. Whatever it is that separates your Stuff – your products or services – from the similar Stuff your competition is selling, that’s your Wow!

Online-Map ListingsOnline map listings are essential for businesses with brick-and-mortar locations. They are the first thing people see on search engines. They offer a concise snapshot of business info so customers can easily contact you or visit your store. And best of all, they don’t cost any money!” Make sure your business is on Google+ business, as well as all the local review sites and other map listings you can find.

Many new website owners submit their site to the major search engines and then sit back and wait for customers to come. While this is an important step for marketing online, website owners often overlook all the other directories available.

Look for specialized link directories and niche sites to submit your business information and website. Not only will these directories help increase your link popularity, but they can drive highly targeted traffic to your retail store.

Google, Yahoo, Superpages and other directories and search engines are creating tools for local shoppers to find your business, provide maps of location, hours of operation and even coupons. Many of these listings are free with upgrade options for a fee.

Video marketing online allows a retailer to extend the reach of their message to a larger audience for little investment. Unlike traditional marketing, producing a unique online ad or video to convey your message or brand your store can have an extremely high ROI.

Talk to Jessica about ways to have planet 3 name mentioned without spending too much money-sponsored by, etc.

Effective advertising reaches potential customers and informs them of your products or services. Ideally, advertising should capture the prospective customers attentions attention and entice them to use your product. Regardless of the method, all your advertising should be clear and consistently reflect the unique positioning statement of your business.

Word-of-mouth advertising is considered the most effective form.It has the desired qualities of strong credibility, high audience attention levels, and friendly audience reception. It features open-ended conversation with questions and answers about the product, psychological incentives to purchase, memorability, efficiency and frequency. Word-of-mouth advertising passes product information to many other potential buyers (and may even include promotional trial demonstrations and free sampling), at little or no cost to the business. Whenever possible, a small business should build an advertising program that results in word-of-mouth advertising. Satisfied customers are your best advertisements.

Create Your Own Newsletter

Depending upon the nature of your business, creating your own newsletter can be an effective way to reach customers. Your newsletter can be a blend of advertising and informational text that reminders your customers of your logo and identity and keeps you in touch with with them. You can save postage costs, buy leveraging an email customer list and by having the newsletter available on your website. Just be sure to keep your image consistent, wherever it is seen in print, and have it seen as frequently as you possibly can.

Point-of-Purchase Displays Trigger Sales-what??/

The importance of POP displays cannot be overemphasized. Impulse buying accounts for a huge amount of product sales. Service businesses can also use some POP techniques, especially when going to add-ons to a regular service such as “wax my car as long as you’re going to keep it to change the oil” type of last minute decisions. But it’s in the product realm that POP is king.

Often it’s manufacturers who pay the cost of POP advertising. Providing a retailer with an attractive display is money well-spent by any manufacturer if it entices a retailer to feature the product and the consumer to purchase it on impulse.

POP can take the form of danglers, signs, posters, banners, custom display racks, special lighting, or video monitors with promotional loops playing all day long. Bounceback and register tape coupons (printed on the back of the cash register receipt) are good to give at a POP location to stimulate customer’s return to your business in the future. POP even has its own trade magazine, Shopper Marketing, and there are numerous website providing POP information, such as the In-Store Marketing Institute. If you are a retailer or a maker of consumer goods, you’ll want to study the opportunities POP offers.

Signs and Displays Convey Your Identity

Signage is a key component of establishing and perpetuating your identity. Billboards, blimps, search lights, and skywriting are exotic and expensive; you’d be better served by concentrating on more down-to-earth signs. Matchbooks or boxes with a logo and vital information were always the thrifty solution, but nowadays smoking is on the wane. So try something different such as boxes with little toothpicks instead of matches. This has been very successful in several markets, particularly with upscale restaurants. Key chains, pens and pencils, and calendars are premiums and ad specialties. If they are appropriate for your kind of business, they’re worth their weight in ad dollars. People use them. They don’t usually end up in drawers or waste baskets.

Bumper stickers, balloons, buttons, decals, and even T-shirts are examples of ad specialty signage that works. Paper or plastic bags and packaging make economical billboards too. Print your name, logo, and message on anything you can, on all sides. Don’t miss an opportunity to get your word out. Mailing labels are a perfect medium. Everyone who handles your mail will see your ad at no cost to you.

Also consider “branding” your vehicles. Cars and trucks are great traveling billboards. You can readily find a magnetic sign supplier who can fashion a flexible rubberized sign to attach to your company truck or your personal car. When not in use for company business, simply remove the sign. Employee uniforms are another form of sign. Your logo and identity must carry through all possible aspects of your business. T-shirts are great signs that even your customers can wear.

Interior and exterior signs should be lighted to take advantage of every opportunity to be seen. Neon is becoming popular again, and creative things are being done in this medium.

Reader boards, those signs using individual letters so you can change the message at will, are very useful if well-positioned, lighted, and maintained. Zoning ordinances often limit the use of reader boards. These signs can be portable, on wheels, fixed to the ground in what is called “monument” style or, most often, high up on a pole. Changing the message often and avoiding misspellings will enhance their effect on your business.

DIRECT MAIL-INVOLVES UPDATING ALL CLIENTAL.

Direct mail and catalogs remain popular. despite the rise in online shopping. Whether you use direct mail promotions or develop your own catalog, the demographics of your mailing list (database) is the key to success. Firms like L.L. Bean, Land’s End, and Eddie Bauer are masters of database marketing. If you hope to get started in this arena, our advice is to start very small and narrow your niche to a needlepoint.